This spritely prelude and fugue is even shorter than the E major prelude and fugue. In Sviatoslav Richter's performance both pieces together only come to two minutes duration. There are some other resemblances as well: the prelude is again in 12/8 and the fugue has a subject with a lot of running sixteenth notes. But apart from that, this pair of pieces are unique individuals as are all the ones in the Well-Tempered Clavier.
The prelude is dominated by sequences of various kinds with a great deal of exchanges between the two voices. The virtuoso brilliance is enhanced by the extended trills.
The fugue subject begins with a very distinctive motif that turns into running sixteenths which then act as a rather neutral countersubject. There is not much else here other than that subject which appears in succession in the three voices twice, making up the first half of this brief fugue. The second half is dominated by the subject in stretto, again, stated twice at the interval of two measures. The first time the subject appears from the soprano through the alto and finally bass and the second time that is reversed, bass, alto, then soprano. In the middle, there is another stretto, just with the bass and alto. We haven't had this much stretto in a fugue since the very first one, in C major.
Just a little note for those joining us late: a "stretto" is a contrapuntal technique where a subject is layered upon itself giving the music a feeling of hurrying up. It is as if one person interrupts another in conversation by starting to speak before the first person is finished. In a fugue it is not considered rude, but rather an opportunity to both show off the composer's skill and to increase the musical tension.
This fugue is all about entries of the subject of which there are thirteen before a brief episode that closes the piece. And all this in the span of one minute.
Here is Sviatoslav Richter with the score:
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